Dan Hinxman: NASCAR can't police itself until it figures out it has a problem

Denny Hamlin hits a ball from a sand trap during the American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament at Edgewood Tahoe.

NASCAR's got a problem, and it will never be fixed until the drivers and owners agree that they've got a problem.

Denny Hamlin suffered a serious injury when Joey Logano took him out during the Auto Club 400 at Fontana, Calif., on March 24. Hamlin slammed nose first into an inside wall and suffered a compression fracture in his vertebrae. He was out six weeks, and his hopes of battling for a Sprint Cup title were dashed.

Logano didn't go so far as to say it was intentional, but he did say afterward that Hamlin got what he deserved. And Hamlin has said he believes the wreck was intentional.

It was just one in a long line of feuds in NASCAR in the past few years. Seemingly every week, there's an apparent intentional take-out and/or a heated exchange in the pits. It's not uncommon to see fists fly.

What's causing all the increased frayed nerves, and what should be done to stop it?

It depends on who you ask.

Hamlin, who is playing in the American Century Championship at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course this week (NASCAR has the weekend off), blamed it mostly on a kind of "handicapped" NASCAR and tracks that still aren't up to snuff in safety.

"I think it's the pressure to perform as much as anything because the cars are so equal in speed now and all the drivers are so good," Hamlin said after his first round at Edgewood, where he was paired with part-time driver and team owner Michael Waltrip. "Any time you have a bad finish and someone causes that bad finish, there's instant anger towards that person because you know it's going to be hard to make up that ground. I think that's where a lot of the intensity comes from."

Hamlin, who has had an unproductive text chat with Logano and has not spoken to him since the wreck, scoffed at the notion that the cars are "too safe," that they give drivers a sense of invincibility.

"They're not too safe," he said. "I was a centimeter from being paralyzed. The cars are safe, but we need to get the racetracks to level out where the cars are (by installing SAFER barriers - steel and foam energy reduction barriers - throughout the track).

Waltrip, though, sees it differently. Asked why there are more skirmishes, he had a fairly common answer - common, but one that will continue to put Hamlin and his fellow drivers in jeopardy.

"I don't know, but I like it," Waltrip said. "I think it's real important people understand how passionate these drivers are and how tough this job is. If someone takes something away from you that you think was unjust, you've got to stand your ground. And we're seeing a lot of people stand their ground, and we're seeing a lot of people getting mad. It makes for exciting racing."

Waltrip wants the cars to be so safe that drivers feel invincible.

"That's the way we want them to feel," he said. "We want them all to feel like they're Superman, to drive their asses off."

"As drivers, we don't want NASCAR involved," Hamlin said. "We don't want them being the official what's-right-and-wrong. It'll police itself out. When a guy does you wrong, you take care of him later."

That thinking is fine every time a car spins out and a driver gets out and hurls a helmet at the evil-doer. Great TV and all.

But had Hamlin ended up in a wheelchair from that March 24 incident, drivers and owners would be singing a different tune.

Dan Hinxman's columns appear Sundays, Wednesdays and periodically. Email him at dhinxman@rgj.com, and follow him on Twitter: @DanHinxmanRGJ.

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Dan Hinxman: NASCAR can't police itself until it figures out it has a problem

NASCAR's got a problem, and it will never be fixed until the drivers and owners agree that they've got a problem.

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